


Ten Years' Wages

by toujours_nigel



Category: HOMER - Works
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-14
Updated: 2010-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:18:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That's the last of them fed, and I've the bowls to scrub, and the salves to make, and Himself to coax into eating. So, I'll just get to that, my Lord, if you'll be kind enough to hand me the bowl while you go?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Years' Wages

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sealgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sealgirl/gifts).



Well, that’s the last of them—took him long enough to turn up, been gawking at Himself, shouldn’t wonder, not but he’s been making a right spectacle, and who’s going to wash the grit out of his hair I’d like to know, when he’s come out of the funk? Not those pretty girls, that’s for sure, and certainly not Madame Briseis, with all her clawing at her breasts—and won’t she be half sorry she did that, before the night’s over and her silly little fit finishes? Oh, just you wait and see, it’ll be me looking for salves and ointments to soothe those welts. Same as it’ll be me washing the blood from Himself’s scalp. Same as it’ll be me, like as not, scrubbing the grease from those platters the girls’d been cleaning, stupid sluts. If I’ve told them once, I’ve told them a hundred dozen times—you can’t let the fat congeal or it’s Heracles’ Labours to get the shine back again. But will they listen? Oh no, not them, they’ve to rush sobbing out like dancers to weep over mangled corpses, don’t they all?

Not but it’s sad, I’m sure. But those lads in the sand they’re weeping over, well, they’re here because of them, aren’t they? We all are, even Mistress Briseis, who likes to put on airs because she’s so pretty. Little fool, for believing Himself would marry her, he as has a princess for a wife already and could have the High King’s own girls. Not that he’s my High King, mind, that’s old Priam in his tower, if it’s anyone, and for certain it’s not those brothers, for all they look so fetching in their spears and their lion-skins. Still, it’s a way of saying things, and sure that lass called him High King; sure but that’s the least of what she must’ve had to call him, held in his tents all those days while Himself sulked in here. And there were all his friends getting butchered, and he wouldn’t go out and play because the High King had taken his toys, the big bully. Nearly ran home crying to his mother—wanted to, I could see it in his face, all those hours plucking on and on at his lyre, and making faces at the food like it’s beneath him to have aught but ambrosia. Lost more flesh sitting there than he did fighting the last ten years.

Put his friend into a bit of a tizzy, too, and him a sensible young man as knows his way around the land in things other than skirmishes. Did a bit of farming out back, too, knew what grew when, knew the prayers to the mother and the daughter, knew to give the first fruit to her and the first grain. Shock of my life when I saw him do it—lad of sixteen, barely had a woman and rattling off all the prayers without pause for breath, even cut himself right. And there’s me standing there with Himself glowering in the tent—not but he was a pretty little lad his own self, I’ll almost believe that story of finding him in the women’s rooms you’ve been telling me all these years—gaping like I’ve never seen a man-child before. And never have I seen another do women’s worship so flawlessly. Oh, but sure he’s a credit to his mother, no matter what his father thinks of him. Mothers, you said? And sisters, too, no doubt? Boy like that, you can see the work his women have put into him. Could see, you’re right, of course, no point being sentimental about it, there’s enough of that going on already, what with Himself pouring half the beach on his pretty head.

But you could, y’know, and of course you’ll have known him better, what with battlefields and feasts, but he’s the one who remembered names, and where we’d been taken from, and which of the girls had lost husbands, and which of them were gently born and which of them were to have children. Even tried to find out whose the children were, though that was never going to work, with this lot we’ve here, all shoved into the same tent and the same girl to five or ten. I told him, the first time, stop searching, nobody cares, and maybe it’s from the husband you butchered, and maybe it’s from the men who had her up against the wall beside her father’s corpse, and maybe it’s from Himself, and maybe it’s from that disgusting man with the limp and the loud jokes. No, I know. Maybe I shouldn’t have said it, but sure it shook him up, poor dead lad, and sure it made him take care. Not just of the girls, oh no, never that, though that too. But he’s all we had, y’know, and he was trying to do right by himself, and by Himself, too, that’s why they sent him, isn’t it, that’s what he’d been doing his whole life, and that’s what he wanted to do. And maybe I shouldn’t have told him, they don’t tell the High King that, and they don’t tell Himself’s cousin that, and they don’t tell you that. But Lord Aias has Tecmessa, and she’s sharp—needs to be, doesn’t she, what with him and his brother and that son she’s had with him. And the High King, well he lets his men run riot and his women be whored out to them, long as they pretend to keep the prettiest especially for him. And you—well, you get good use out of those grey eyes of yours, don’t you, Goddess-touched? And you’ve a wife waiting for you, and you trade your girls for things that you’ll show her without being thrown out of your bed. Well, we had none of that, did we? Just that lad running around trying to be a credit to his father and a support to his friend.

Oh, never you mind, I’m not trying to talk him down, he was every bit a good soldier, I know, I’m the one as polished and stored his trophies and found food for his girls and needles to stitch his wounds; I’m not saying he couldn’t cut men into pieces with the rest of you, it’s what’s got him butchered, hasn’t it, and by Prince Hektor, too, and he every bit as great a hero as any, or so my nephews used to tell me when they managed to find their way home. No, no sons. Nor daughters, neither, if you’re thinking that’s why I told that lad about the girls. Someone had to tell him, my lord, and you know as well as I that it’d never have been you, and Himself would never have seen it the same way, he’s one for big gestures, all or nothing, he’d have raped them all or killed them all or tried to marry them all off, and none of that would’ve worked, and then he’d have gone off into another of his great sulks. He wants to be a god or a High King or a hero so great nobody can deny him, that one—but he’s not more than a man, and he’ll never be a High King, and we’ve more heroes than him, if none greater—you yourself, Trickster, and Lord Aias, and Lord Diomedes.

Oh, I’m not saying he’s not great, better than aught anyone’s seen before—I’ve seen him, he killed the Lord of my town, Princess Andromache’s father as was, and nearly all his men, and he did it with none but that lad at his side. Oh, he’s great all right, is Himself, and they’ll remember him a sight longer than they’ll remember my High King or yours. But he’s always had this need to be great, hasn’t he, and it’s made him more than a bit blind to people, sure as it’s strengthened his spear-arm and broadened his shoulders. That other lad, though, he cared. That’s what killed him, he couldn’t see his friends killed while he did naught about it. Sure he wanted glory for himself, and mayhap he wanted some glory for his father, too, but nobody’s ever wanted glory more than Himself, and he’d never have moved. That boy cared too much, and that’s killed him off, and he’s all that kept our camp running, and now he’s gone, and he’s all Himself cared for that lived and breathed, and like as not you’ll push him to vengeance while he’s crying his lovely eyes out, Lord Odysseus, or I’ve learnt naught of your nature, these ten years you’ve been eating food from my kitchen. Not that he’ll need much pushing, mind, or I’ve learnt naught of his nature, these ten years I’ve been cooking his meals and washing his dishes and making him salves. Not that I’d mind seeing that dead lad avenged, either, for all Priam’s my High King. The camp’ll be chaos, with him dead and Himself half out of his mind with rage and Briseis crying her pretty eyes out, and like as not it’ll be me trying to sort everything out, what with that boy dead and gone.

Now I’ve to start cleaning out these bowls, my Lord, so if you’ll allow me. And then there’s the salves to make, and I’ll have to see about getting Himself to let one of the girls to wash his hair out, and I’ll have to see about that poor lad and think how to keep him from rotting till we come to burn him, and there’s tomorrow’s meals to think about, too, and it’s going to be dawn soon and a surprise if I get any sleep. So, my Lord, if you’ll allow me, I’d best get back to work. If you’ll just hand me the bowl when you leave.


End file.
